Who am i? ENFPPERSONALITY (“THECAMPAIGNER”)

It does­n’t interest me what you do for a liv­ing. I want to know what you ache for – and if you dare to dream of meet­ing your heart’s long­ing. It does­n’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk look­ing like a fool – for love – for your dreams – for the adven­ture of being alive.

Ori­ah Moun­tain Dream­er

The ENFP per­son­al­ity is a true free spir­it. They are often the life of the party, but unlike Explorers, they are less inter­ested in the sheer excite­ment and pleas­ure of the moment than they are in enjoy­ing the social and emo­tion­al con­nec­tions they make with oth­ers. Charm­ing, inde­pend­ent, ener­get­ic and com­pas­sion­ate, the 7% of the pop­u­la­tion that they com­prise can cer­tainly be felt in any crowd.

You Can Change the World With Just an Idea

More than just soci­able people-pleas­ers though, ENFPs, like all their Dip­lo­mat cous­ins, are shaped by their Intu­it­ive (N) qual­ity, allow­ing them to read between the lines with curi­os­ity and energy. They tend to see life as a big, com­plex puzzle where everything is con­nec­ted – but unlike Ana­lysts, who tend to see that puzzle as a series of sys­tem­ic mach­in­a­tions, ENFPs see it through a prism of emo­tion, com­pas­sion and mys­ti­cism, and are always look­ing for a deep­er mean­ing.

ENFPs are fiercely inde­pend­ent, and much more than sta­bil­ity and secur­ity, they crave cre­ativ­ity and free­dom.

Many oth­er types are likely to find these qual­it­ies irres­ist­ible, and if they’ve found a cause that sparks their ima­gin­a­tion, ENFPs will bring an energy that often­times thrusts them into the spot­light, held up by their peers as a lead­er and a guru – but this isn’t always where inde­pend­ence-lov­ing ENFPs want to be. Worse still if they find them­selves beset by the admin­is­trat­ive tasks and routine main­ten­ance that can accom­pany a lead­er­ship pos­i­tion. ENFPs’ self-esteem is depend­ent on their abil­ity to come up with ori­gin­al solu­tions, and they need to know that they have the free­dom to be innov­at­ive – they can quickly lose patience or become dejec­ted if they get trapped in a bor­ing role.

Don’t Lose That ‘Little Spark of Mad­ness’

Luck­ily, ENFPs know how to relax, and they are per­fectly cap­able of switch­ing from a pas­sion­ate, driv­en ideal­ist in the work­place to that ima­gin­at­ive and enthu­si­ast­ic free spir­it on the dance floor, often with a sud­den­ness that can sur­prise even their closest friends. Being in the mix also gives them a chance to con­nect emo­tion­ally with oth­ers, giv­ing them cher­ished insight into what motiv­ates their friends and col­leagues. They believe that every­one should take the time to recog­nize and express their feel­ings, and their empathy and soci­ab­il­ity make that a nat­ur­al con­ver­sa­tion top­ic.

The ENFP per­son­al­ity type needs to be care­ful, how­ever – if they rely too much on their intu­ition, assume or anti­cip­ate too much about a friend’s motiv­a­tions, they can mis­read the sig­nals and frus­trate plans that a more straight­for­ward approach would have made simple. This kind of social stress is the bug­bear that keeps har­mony-focused Dip­lo­mats awake at night. ENFPs are very emo­tion­al and sens­it­ive, and when they step on someone’s toes, they both feel it.

ENFPs will spend a lot of time explor­ing social rela­tion­ships, feel­ings and ideas before they find some­thing that really rings true. But when they finally do find their place in the world, their ima­gin­a­tion, empathy and cour­age are likely to pro­duce incred­ible res­ults.

ENFP Strengths

Curi­ous – When it comes to new ideas, ENFPs aren’t inter­ested in brood­ing – they want to go out and exper­i­ence things, and don’t hes­it­ate to step out of their com­fort zones to do so. ENFPs are ima­gin­at­ive and open-minded, see­ing all things as part of a big, mys­ter­i­ous puzzle called life.

Obser­v­ant – ENFPs believe that there are no irrel­ev­ant actions, that every shift in sen­ti­ment, every move and every idea is part of some­thing big­ger. To sat­is­fy their curi­os­ity, ENFPs try to notice all of these things, and to nev­er miss a moment.

Ener­get­ic and Enthu­si­ast­ic – As they observe, form­ing new con­nec­tions and ideas, ENFPs won’t hold their tongues – they’re excited about their find­ings, and share them with any­one who’ll listen. This infec­tious enthu­si­asm has the dual bene­fit of giv­ing ENFPs a chance to make more social con­nec­tions, and of giv­ing them a new source of inform­a­tion and exper­i­ence, as they fit their new friends’ opin­ions into their exist­ing ideas.

Excel­lent Com­mu­nic­at­ors – It’s a good thing that ENFPs have such strong people skills, or they’d nev­er express these ideas. ENFPs enjoy both small talk and deep, mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions, which are just two sides of the same coin for them, and are adept at steer­ing con­ver­sa­tions towards their desired sub­jects in ways that feel com­pletely nat­ur­al and unforced.

Know How to Relax – It’s not all “nature of the cos­mos” dis­cus­sions with ENFPs – people with this per­son­al­ity type know that some­times, noth­ing is as import­ant as simply hav­ing fun and exper­i­en­cing life’s joys. That Intu­it­ive trait lets ENFPs know that it’s time to shake things up, and these wild bursts of enthu­si­ast­ic energy can sur­prise even their closest friends.

Very Pop­u­lar and Friendly – All this adapt­ab­il­ity and spon­taneity comes togeth­er to form a per­son who is approach­able, inter­est­ing and excit­ing, with a coöper­at­ive and altru­ist­ic spir­it and friendly, empath­et­ic dis­pos­i­tion. ENFPs get along with pretty much every­one, and their circles of friends stretch far and wide.

ENFP Weak­nesses

Poor Prac­tic­al Skills – When it comes to con­ceiv­ing ideas and start­ing pro­jects, espe­cially involving oth­er people, ENFPs have excep­tion­al tal­ent. Unfor­tu­nately their skill with upkeep, admin­is­tra­tion, and fol­low-through on those pro­jects struggles. Without more hands-on people to help push day-to-day things along, ENFPs’ ideas are likely to remain just that – ideas.

Find it Dif­fi­cult to Focus – ENFPs are nat­ur­al explorers of inter­per­son­al con­nec­tions and philo­sophy, but this back­fires when what needs to be done is that TPS report sit­ting right in front of them. It’s hard for ENFPs to main­tain interest as tasks drift towards routine, admin­is­trat­ive mat­ters, and away from broad­er con­cepts.

Overthink Things – ENFPs don’t take things at face value – they look for under­ly­ing motives in even the simplest things. It’s not uncom­mon for ENFPs to lose a bit of sleep ask­ing them­selves why someone did what they did, what it might mean, and what to do about it.

Get Stressed Eas­ily – All this overthink­ing isn’t just for their own bene­fit – ENFPs, espe­cially Tur­bu­lent ones, are very sens­it­ive, and care deeply about oth­ers’ feel­ings. A con­sequence of their pop­ular­ity is that oth­ers often look to them for guid­ance and help, which takes time, and it’s easy to see why ENFPs some­times get over­whelmed, espe­cially when they can­’t say yes to every request.

Highly Emo­tion­al – While emo­tion­al expres­sion is healthy and nat­ur­al, with ENFPs even view­ing it as a core part of their iden­tity, it can come out strongly enough to cause prob­lems for this per­son­al­ity type. Par­tic­u­larly when under stress, cri­ti­cism or con­flict, ENFPs can exper­i­ence emo­tion­al bursts that are counter-pro­duct­ive at best.

Inde­pend­ent to a Fault – ENFPs loathe being micro­man­aged and restrained by heavy-handed rules – they want to be seen as highly inde­pend­ent mas­ters of their own fates, even pos­sessors of an altru­ist­ic wis­dom that goes bey­ond dra­coni­an law. The chal­lenge for ENFPs is that they live in a world of checks and bal­ances, a pill they are not happy to swal­low.

ENFPRELATIONSHIPS

When it comes to rela­tion­ships, there’s hardly any­one around who is more excited than ENFPs to share with their part­ners the bounty of ideas and eye-open­ing exper­i­ences that life has to offer. For people with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type, rela­tion­ships are a joy­ous pro­cess of mutu­al explor­a­tion and ima­gin­a­tion, a chance to con­nect with anoth­er soul. ENFPs take their rela­tion­ships ser­i­ously, and are known for their unin­hib­ited and unshake­able devo­tion to the people to whom they’ve com­mit­ted their hearts.

ENFPs have the advant­age of irres­ist­ible charm when it comes to attract­ing a part­ner – ENFPs’ warmth, excite­ment and pas­sion are simply allur­ing.

In the dat­ing phase, if ENFPs can be said to tol­er­ate such a form­al pro­cess to begin with, they will show these qual­it­ies by shower­ing their new flames with affec­tion, and will do everything they can to build a strong rela­tion­ship by demon­strat­ing their devo­tion and reli­ab­il­ity by whatever means avail­able.

You Can­not Live Without a Fire

Long-dis­tance rela­tion­ships are quite com­mon among ENFPs, as they view phys­ic­al dis­tance as just anoth­er idea, no match for con­cepts like love. This gives them the chance to demon­strate their com­mit­ment, both by stay­ing true des­pite the phys­ic­al sep­ar­a­tion, and with over­tures of effort to sur­prise their part­ners, cross­ing that dis­tance on a whim. These are demon­stra­tions of ENFPs’ mys­tery, ideal­ism and deep emo­tion, and such efforts often keep the flames of a rela­tion­ship burn­ing bright.

People with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type express these ideals sexu­ally as well, explor­ing the phys­ic­al with ima­gin­a­tion and pas­sion, view­ing these times togeth­er as a chance to let their feel­ings for each oth­er shine, shar­ing their love and affec­tion. ENFPs will will­ingly exper­i­ment with their part­ners, even early in a rela­tion­ship, but they can also be oddly per­fec­tion­ist­ic, believ­ing that these phys­ic­al acts are a rep­res­ent­a­tion of their deep­er love, and as such should not be per­formed care­lessly. This per­fec­tion­ism is also a reflec­tion of their sens­it­iv­ity, their desire to not dis­ap­point, and ENFPs appre­ci­ate a well-placed com­pli­ment.

Not every­one can handle the excite­ment, occa­sion­al need­i­ness, and emo­tion­al ups and downs that this philo­sophy entails, wheth­er long-dis­tance or long-term, mys­tic­al or phys­ic­al. ENFPs con­stantly explore new ideas and improve­ments, fan­tas­ize about future pos­sib­il­it­ies – in dat­ing, this tend­ency to look at poten­tial rather than the present can be self-defeat­ing, and their spon­taneity makes it harder to stay focused on their end goal of a long-term rela­tion­ship. If their part­ners aren’t able to recip­roc­ate these acts of excite­ment and devo­tion, ENFPs will likely end up feel­ing unhappy and mis­un­der­stood.

So, You Think You Know the Real Me?

ENFPs go all-in with their rela­tion­ships, and if they fall apart des­pite their efforts, they can end up plagued with ques­tions about why the rela­tion­ship failed and what they could have done dif­fer­ently – without a buoy, these thoughts can crush ENFPs’ self-esteem as they sink into depres­sion. It’s import­ant for ENFP per­son­al­it­ies, as with any­one, to remem­ber that rela­tion­ships are in all ways mutu­al – mutu­al interest, mutu­al growth, and mutu­al respons­ib­il­ity – and they can­’t be solely account­able.

After a tri­al like this, ENFPs may be reluct­ant to open up and com­mit, and it can take years for a part­ner to nav­ig­ate their bewil­der­ing depth and intens­ity, falsely believ­ing that ENFPs’ enthu­si­asm and appar­ent open­ness means that they wear everything on their sleeves. The real­ity is that ENFPs’ spon­taneity, the seem­ing incon­sist­ency and errat­icism the untrained eye sees, isn’t a product of flight­i­ness or lack of depth, but the oppos­ite – it is a drive to express ideas about a mys­tic­al, all-encom­passing energy, in the con­fines of a phys­ic­al world, and under­ly­ing it all is the unit­ing prin­ciple of love, expressed in many dif­fer­ent ways, but unshake­able and infin­ite at its core.

ENFPFRIENDS

As friends, ENFPs are cheer­ful and sup­port­ive, always shar­ing and devel­op­ing ideas, and stay­ing open-minded, tak­ing in oth­ers’ thoughts and feel­ings. This warmth and sin­cer­ity makes people with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type mas­ters of draw­ing people out of their shells, and as a res­ult they tend to have a huge circle of friends.

As with oth­er rela­tion­ships, ENFPs view their friend­ships as oppor­tun­it­ies to exper­i­ence anoth­er angle of the uni­verse, and tend to imbue poten­tial friend­ships with that weighty and ideal­ist­ic qual­ity.

An Excit­ing Adven­ture

More out­go­ing types will nat­ur­ally grav­it­ate towards them, but ENFPs will also go to great lengths and be sur­pris­ingly per­sist­ent in their efforts to get to know more reserved per­son­al­it­ies. Their abil­ity to tune into oth­ers and speak their lan­guage with that char­ac­ter­ist­ic infec­tious enthu­si­asm helps them in this endeavor, and the allure of mys­tery that reserved types, espe­cially Intro­ver­ted Intu­it­ives, bring to the table will keep ENFPs intrigued for years. These per­son­al­ity types may nev­er be able to recip­roc­ate the breadth of human interest that ENFPs present, but they do appre­ci­ate ENFPs’ efforts.

But ENFPs’ interest in oth­ers can be a double-edged sword – this pure ideal­ism comes with cer­tain expect­a­tions, and too often ENFPs hold their friends in an unreal­ist­ic light, expect­ing them to keep up with the con­stant flow of ideas and exper­i­ences that they con­sider integ­ral to life. ENFPs put their whole hearts into their friend­ships, and it can come as a shock for them to find that their friends aren’t the flaw­less Titans that they believed them to be. Wheth­er it’s simple social fatigue or a focus on the phys­ic­al and the prac­tic­al instead of the mys­tic­al, people with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type can find them­selves dis­ap­poin­ted by what they see as a lack of sub­stance beneath the sur­face.

ENFPs tend to get deeply involved in oth­ers’ lives, going to great lengths and efforts to be the self­less, caring and sup­port­ive people they are, and all the while for­get to take care of them­selves. Both in terms of basic needs like fin­an­cial sta­bil­ity and rest, as well as more emo­tion­al needs like mutu­al under­stand­ing and recip­roc­a­tion, ENFP per­son­al­it­ies tend to give much more of them­selves than most are even cap­able of giv­ing back. This sort of imbal­ance isn’t sus­tain­able, as (seem­ingly) one-sided gen­er­os­ity often leads to cri­ti­cism and resent­ment on both sides.

Mak­ing Life Spec­tac­u­lar

Luck­ily, ENFPs are open-minded and sin­cere enough in their friend­ships, and con­nect with and under­stand even their acquaint­ances well enough, that they recog­nize that not every­one expresses them­selves in the same ways, and that that’s okay. Their sens­it­iv­ity may make it too chal­len­ging to play with more crit­ic­al and argu­ment­at­ive per­son­al­it­ies, such as strongly expressed Think­ing (T) and Judging (J) types, but they do appre­ci­ate, even cher­ish, the com­pany of most any­one who appre­ci­ates theirs, and the adven­tures and exper­i­ences they have togeth­er are the stuff a good life is made of.

ENFPPARENTS

If there is any­thing that makes ENFPs great par­ents, it’s the sense of won­der they have for all things new and beau­ti­ful, a sense that they will be able to share with their chil­dren every day as they learn and grow. Through­out their chil­dren’s lives, ENFPs provide a com­bin­a­tion of almost over­whelm­ing love and sup­port, and an unstruc­tured envir­on­ment revolving around free­dom and cre­ativ­ity. This in no way means that people with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type will simply leave their chil­dren to their own devices without guid­ance – rather, ENFP par­ents want to share in their chil­dren’s per­spect­ive, share in a world without bounds.

ENFP par­ents are play­ful and warm, and love to see their chil­dren excited, play­ing in and exper­i­ment­ing with the world around them. It is likely that ENFP par­ents will encour­age this play and growth by sug­gest­ing activ­it­ies and les­sons.

ENFPs will embrace and encour­age pro­duct­ive interests as they arise, sweep­ing away dolls and dino­saurs when interests shift to the oceans, and sweep­ing away the fish when tastes change again, to the stars.

While they often enough recog­nize the value of struc­ture and pre­dict­ab­il­ity, ENFP par­ents are unlikely to have the heart (or as they may see it, the lack of heart) to estab­lish these lim­it­a­tions them­selves. They may need to depend on their part­ners to provide some neces­sary guidelines and dis­cip­line from time to time, but ENFP par­ents will always have the advant­age of their open-minded and empath­et­ic nature, mak­ing them not just par­ents, but friends who their chil­dren feel com­fort­able con­fid­ing in. They need­n’t always depend on their chil­dren broach­ing the sub­ject either, as ENFPs have a nat­ur­al skill in spot­ting emo­tion­al dis­har­mony or phys­ic­al dis­com­fort in oth­ers.

Go On, Spread Your Wings

As their chil­dren approach the teen­age years, all this emo­tion and atten­tion can start to cloy, and their chil­dren may seek a more private inde­pend­ence. This can be a chal­lenge for people with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type – they have strong emo­tions, and invest those emo­tions heav­ily in the things and people they care about. While they may not be big on using proven ideas, ENFPs do like to see wheth­er or not their ideas work, and this applies to their thoughts on par­ent­ing, too. As their adoles­cent chil­dren with­draw, they leave an unsolved mys­tery that can last for years, leav­ing their ENFP par­ents won­der­ing if their ideas on rais­ing their chil­dren actu­ally work, actu­ally res­ult in happy, inde­pend­ent and cre­at­ive adults.

Luck­ily for them, so long as they raise their chil­dren with a sense of pro­duct­ive inde­pend­ence, rather than an aim­less, against-the-grain anti­pathy, ENFPs will find that their chil­dren have developed a strong sense of self and self-worth, going con­fid­ently out into the big, wide world at their own pace and in their own style, know­ing that they have both them­selves and their ENFP par­ents to depend on.

ENFPCAREERS

“Can­’t I fly heli­copters AND be an ocean­o­graph­er who writes songs and cooks?” It’s a big world out there – per­haps even a little too big. ENFPs are fas­cin­ated by new ideas, both in terms of devel­op­ments in fields they are already famil­i­ar with, and when new sub­jects come along. The trick for people with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type is to take advant­age of this qual­ity, this won­der with the mag­ni­fi­cent breadth and detail in the world, and to use it to pro­pel them­selves fur­ther and deep­er than oth­ers are will­ing or able to go.

If there’s a chal­lenge ENFPs face when select­ing a career, it isn’t that they lack tal­ent or options or drive, it’s that there are so many things out there that are justcool.

The Open­ing of a Door Can Be a Won­der­fully Joy­ous Moment

Chief among ENFPs’ tal­ents is their people skills, a qual­ity that is even more valu­able now than ever. Even in tra­di­tion­al Ana­lyst strong­holds like engin­eer­ing, sys­tems ana­lys­is and the sci­ences, ENFPs’ abil­ity to net­work and match the com­mu­nic­a­tion styles of their audi­ence means that even as they explore new chal­lenges on their own, they will be able to work with oth­ers, explore oth­ers’ per­spect­ives and glean new insights into their pro­jects. Much of mod­ern pro­gress stems from incor­por­at­ing oth­er stud­ies into typ­ic­ally dis­as­so­ci­ated fields, and no one is bet­ter equipped to merge broad interests than tal­en­ted, ener­get­ic and future-minded ENFPs.

And while Think­ing types may be bet­ter at apply­ing logic to sys­tems and machines, people with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type are able to apply that same logic to human inter­ac­tions and net­works, using their excep­tion­al social per­cep­tion to find out what makes people tick. This lends ENFPs a sol­id foothold in any human sci­ence or ser­vice, from psy­cho­logy, coun­sel­ing and teach­ing to polit­ics, dip­lomacy and detect­ive work. All of these fields have anoth­er import­ant sim­il­ar­ity: they are in con­stant devel­op­ment, shift­ing, present­ing new angles and new approaches. It’s simply not pos­sible to be good in these fields and con­tent with the way things are, and this is where ENFPs truly shine.

Too Many Bosses, Too Few Work­ers

Where ENFPs do not shine is in sys­tems of strict regi­ment­a­tion and hier­archy, such as mil­it­ary ser­vice. ENFPs thrive on the abil­ity to ques­tion the status quo and explore the altern­at­ives, and if this is a qual­ity that is not just unap­pre­ci­ated but actu­ally frowned upon, this will not only make them unhappy, but it may even threaten their emo­tion­al sta­bil­ity. Repe­ti­tion, pre­dict­ab­il­ity, bore­dom… while some Sen­tinel types may appre­ci­ate pre­dict­ab­il­ity and clear hier­arch­ies, these are not selling points for ENFPs. People with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type need to feel like they’re push­ing bound­ar­ies and explor­ing ideas, and should focus on interests and careers that encour­age that.

Many more career options sat­is­fy these needs, and not just the sci­entif­ic ones – writ­ing, journ­al­ism, act­ing and TV report­ing all give ENFPs a chance to explore some­thing new every day and stir the pot a little while they’re at it. It may come to pass though, that the best way for­ward for ENFP per­son­al­it­ies is to estab­lish them­selves as entre­pren­eurs and con­sult­ants, blaz­ing their own trails and tak­ing on whatever pro­ject is most fas­cin­at­ing. So long as they get to use their people skills, identi­fy and achieve their own goals and inspire their col­leagues and fol­low­ers, ENFPs will be happy.

ENFPINTHEWORKPLACE

There are two basic things that ENFPs seek most in the work­place: The chance to explore new ideas, and the chance to con­duct that explor­a­tion along­side oth­er people who share their excite­ment. These qual­it­ies show through at all levels of hier­archy, though much like oth­er Dip­lo­mat per­son­al­ity types, ENFPs would prefer that there be hardly a hier­archy at all. People with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type pos­sess warmth, cre­ativ­ity, and an open-minded­ness that makes them excel­lent listen­ers. If these qual­it­ies are recog­nized by their employ­ers, they will always be able to count on their ENFP employ­ees to innov­ate and boost mor­ale.

ENFP Sub­or­din­ates

ENFPs are growth-ori­ented, and as sub­or­din­ates they’ll impress their man­agers with their cre­ativ­ity and adapt­ab­il­ity. People with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type are excel­lent listen­ers, able to ana­lyze and under­stand oth­ers’ per­spect­ives effort­lessly. It’s per­haps this qual­ity that most makes ENFPs intol­er­ant of micro­man­age­ment – the way they see it, they under­stand what’s been asked of them, and all they require is the free­dom to accom­plish their task. If this need isn’t met, man­agers may find a quickly stressed ENFP sub­or­din­ate.

To a cer­tain extent though, some dir­ect man­age­ment is often neces­sary, as ENFPs are notori­ous for let­ting their atten­tion slip from one pro­ject to the next before they’ve dot­ted their I’s and crossed their T’s. ENFPs love explor­ing new ideas and learn­ing new things, and once some­thing becomes famil­i­ar, its allure starts to fade. But, if man­agers are able to main­tain a spir­it of guid­ance and camarader­ie instead of “bossi­ness”, they will find loy­al and devoted con­trib­ut­ors in their ENFP sub­or­din­ates.

ENFP Col­leagues

ENFPs are people-people, and as far as the work­place is con­cerned, this qual­ity shows through best among col­leagues. More than just cowork­ers, ENFPs view their col­leagues as friends, people who they take a genu­ine interest in, provid­ing sup­port and cheer when they’re down or stressed. People with the ENFP per­son­al­ity type are warm and optim­ist­ic, always search­ing for and usu­ally find­ing win-win situ­ations for every­one.

Brain­storms among equals are ENFPs’ forte, and they listen to dif­fer­ent view­points and sug­ges­tions not just with tol­er­ance, but genu­ine excite­ment. Their abil­ity to relax and have fun will always make them pop­u­lar around the water cool­er, but what sets ENFPs apart is that they can trans­ition that pop­ular­ity into nat­ur­al lead­er­ship, instinct­ively pick­ing up on col­leagues’ motiv­a­tions and pulling their teams togeth­er, push­ing them for­ward towards whatever truth they’ve been tasked to find.

ENFP Man­agers

ENFPs are not great fans of heavy hier­archy and bur­eau­cracy, and this is most evid­ent when they take on the role of man­ager. As man­agers, ENFP per­son­al­it­ies behave much like they do as col­leagues – they estab­lish real friend­ships, and use their broad pop­ular­ity to inspire and motiv­ate, tak­ing on the role of lead­er, work­ing along­side their sub­or­din­ates, rather than shout­ing from behind their desks. ENFPs will tend to believe in the concept of intrins­ic motiv­a­tion, the idea that things are worth doing for their own sake, not because of some con­vo­luted sys­tem of pun­ish­ments and rewards.

Unfor­tu­nately, not every­one buys into this philo­sophy – chal­lenges arise when faced with sub­or­din­ates who actu­ally prefer to be closely dir­ec­ted, with clearly defined object­ives and timetables, people who are just doing their jobs. More chal­len­ging still are those rare moments when a rep­rim­and is simply neces­sary – while ENFPs prefer to meet dis­sent with an open ear, and to use their excel­lent capa­city for sens­ing mood and mor­ale to pree­mpt such an act to begin with, some­times the car­rot and the stick are neces­sary, and using them is the biggest chal­lenge for the ENFP per­son­al­ity type. But ENFPs’ capa­city for adjust­ing their com­mu­nic­a­tion to most any style will always shine through, help­ing to smooth things over and adapt to the needs of their team.

ENFPPERSONALITY – CONCLUSION

Few per­son­al­ity types are as cre­at­ive and cha­ris­mat­ic as ENFPs. Known for their ideal­ism and enthu­si­asm, ENFPs are good at deal­ing with unex­pec­ted chal­lenges and bright­en­ing the lives of those around them. ENFPs’ ima­gin­a­tion is invalu­able in many areas, includ­ing their own per­son­al growth.

Yet ENFPs can be eas­ily tripped up in areas where ideal­ism and kind­ness are more of a liab­il­ity than an asset. Wheth­er it is find­ing (or keep­ing) a part­ner, stay­ing calm under pres­sure, reach­ing dazzling heights on the career lad­der or mak­ing dif­fi­cult decisions, ENFPs need to put in a con­scious effort to devel­op their weak­er traits and addi­tion­al skills.